349 



[TAB. LXXII. LXXIII. LXXIV.] 



ON A NEW GENUS OF PLANTS OF THE 

 NAT. ORD. CRUCIFERiE, 



From the Andes of Chili and Mendoza. 



In the year 1827, my valued friend and correspondent Mr. 

 Cruickshanks sent me from Chili a Crucijeroiis plant, of a very 

 peculiar aspect, which I have now called Hexaptera cuneata; 

 but which having no fruit, I could not then venture to pub- 

 lish, though its decidedly 6-winged germen seemed to separate 

 it from every other genus of its tribe. About the same time 

 Dr. Gillies sent me another plant, also without fruit, which I 

 considered, from the structure of its germen, to belong to the 

 same genus. That gentleman's return to Europe has put 

 me in possession of perfectly fructified specimens of this 

 latter individual, and has enabled me to figure and describe it 

 as the type of a new genus of which he has been so fortunate 

 as to find a third species. In all the three, the fruit or ger- 

 men is furnished with six longitudinal broad wings, from 

 which circumstance I have derived the generic name. In 

 our species, indeed, there are not unfrequently from 1-4 in- 

 termediate lesser wings or crest-like appendages. The place 

 of the genus is amongst the LepidinecB, seu Notorhizce angus- 

 tiseptce of De Cand., which that learned author thus charac- 

 terises : " Silicula septo angustissimo, valvis carinatis aut 

 valde concavis. Semina in loculis solitaria aut pauca, ovata, 

 immarginata. Cotyledones planae, incumbentes, septo paral- 

 lellae;" and it may rank near to JEthionema^ from which it 

 differs in its valves having three distinct wings, instead of one 

 dorsal one, and in these valves being pendulous from the 

 style, as in Cremolohus. 



With this latter genus I am unacquainted, save by the 

 figures and descriptions of De Candolle; but that which 

 follows it, in the Sy sterna and Prodromus of that author, Men- 

 onvillea, I find to have incumbent cotyledons, contrary to 

 the figure in De Lesserfs Ic. t. 56. yi 11, 12. Hence it must 



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